Stuff Asian People Like

36 responses so far ↓

• 1 asian4 // Mar 6, 2008 at 4:20 pm

  You know you’re Chinese when…

  You unwrap Christmas gifts very carefully, so you can save and reuse the wrapping (and especially those bows) next year.

  You only buy Christmas cards after Christmas, when they are 50% off.

  When there is a sale on toilet paper, you buy 100 rolls and store them in your closet or in the bedroom of an adult child who has moved out.

  You have a vinyl table cloth on your kitchen table.

  Your stove is covered with aluminum foil.

  You use the dishwasher as a dish rack.

  You keep a Thermos of hot water available at all times.

  You eat all meals in the kitchen.

  You save grocery bags, tin foil, and tin containers.

  You use grocery bags to hold garbage.

  You always leave your shoes at the door.

  You have a piano in your living room.

  You twirl your pen around your fingers.

  Even if you’re totally full, if someone says they’re going to throw away the leftovers on the table, you’ll finish them.

  You don’t own any real Tupperware — only a cupboard full of used but carefully rinsed margarine tubs, takeout containers, and jam jars.

  You also use the jam jars as drinking glasses.

  You’ve eaten a red bean Popsicle.

  You bring oranges (or other produce) with you as a gift when you visit people’s homes.

  You have a collection of miniature shampoo bottles that you take every time you stay in a hotel.

  The condiments in your fridge are either Price Club sized or come in plastic packets, which you save/steal every time you get take out or go to McDonald’s.

  Ditto for paper napkins.

  You never order room service.

  You carry a stash of your own food whenever you travel (and travel means any car ride longer than 15 minutes). These travel snacks are always dried. As in not just dried plums, dried ginger, and beef/pork jerky, but dried cuttlefish (SQUID).

  Your parents vehemently refuse the sack of gold coin oranges that their guests just brought just to be courteous.

  Your dad thinks he can fix everything himself.

  You majored in something practical like engineering, medicine or law.

  When you go to a dance party, there are a wall of guys surrounding the dance floor trying to look cool.

  You live with your parents and you are 30 years old (and they prefer it that way). Or if you’re married and 30 years old, you live in the apartment next door to your parents, or at least in the same neighborhood.

  You don’t use measuring cups.

  You feel like you’ve gotten a good deal if you didn’t pay tax.

  You beat eggs with chopsticks.

  Your parents’ house is always cold.

  You have a teacup with a cover on it.

  You reuse teabags.

  Your mom drives her Mercedes to the Price Club.

  You tip Chinese delivery guys / waiters more.

  You’re a wok user.

  You like Chinese films in their original undubbed versions.

  You have acquired a taste for bittermelon.

  You like congee with thousand year old eggs.

  You prefer your shrimp with the heads and legs still attached — it means they’re fresh.

  You never call your parents just to say hi.

  You always cook too much.

  If you don’t live at home, when your parents call, they ask if you’ve eaten rice, even if it’s midnight.

  Your parents tell you to boil herbs and stay inside when you get sick. They also tell you not to eat fried foods or baked goods because they produce hot air.

  Your parents never go to the movies.

  Your parents send money to their relatives in China.

  You use a face cloth.

  Your parents use a clothes line.

  You eat every last grain of rice in your bowl, but don’t eat the last piece of food on the table.

  You starve yourself before going to all you can eat sushi.

  You’ve joined a CD club at least once.

  You know someone who can get you a good deal on jewelry or electronics.

  You never discuss your love life with your parents.

  Your parents are never happy with your grades.

  You keep most of your money in a savings account.

  You’ve been on the Love Boat or know someone who has.

  Your toothpaste tubes are all squeezed paper-thin.

  You love Chinese Martial Arts films.

  You have Tupperware in your fridge with three bites of rice or one leftover chicken wing.

  Shao Lin and Wu Tang actually mean something to you.

  You love to go to $1.75 movies.

  You love to go to $1.50 movies even more.

  You never order sweet-n-sour pork, egg foo young, or chop suey at a Chinese restaurant.

  You hate to spend more than $5 for lunch.

  Someone in your family drives a Honda… with custom rims.

  You have a Chinese knick-knack hanging from your rear-view mirror.

  You like to eat chicken feet.

  You suck on fish heads and fish fins.

  You turn bright red after drinking two tablespoons of beer.

  You can get a buzz on Coors O’Douls or Miller Sharps.

  You look like you are eighteen.

  You only buy used cars.

  You have more than five remotes in your house.

  You leave the plastic on the lampshade for ten years or more.

  You can’t bear to throw things away.

  Your dad washes his hair four times a day, or never at all.

  Your unassisted vision is worse than 20/500.

  You’ve worn glasses at least since the fifth grade.

  Your parents (or some other close relative) own a grocery store or restaurant.

  You drive around looking for the cheapest gas.

  You add twice the amount of water recommended when making orange juice from concentrate.

  You’ve never seen your parents hug.

  Your grandmother lives with you and your family.

  You never order desserts at restaurants.

  You always have water when dining out.

  You say “aiya!” and “wah!” frequently.

  You love Las Vegas, slot machines, and blackjack.

  You love to play mah jong.

  You have to read all your parents’ mail written in English.

  You are constantly being set up with uninteresting (and usually ugly) people by your parents.

  You hate eating cheese.

  You have a big aquarium filled with colorful fish somewhere in your house.

  Your mother is strangely obsessed with plants.

  White people look at you strangely if you tell them you are Buddhist.

  You notice the main topic at family get-togethers is food.

  You seldom ever owned new clothes if you were a second child.

  Your folks never speak under 10 decibels at family gatherings.

  You never made the school football or basketball team.

  You have two middle initials instead of one.

  You grow your own bean sprouts in the kitchen.

  Your mother made you peel water chestnuts and snow peas.

  You have an lonely unmarried relative who frequently drops by during dinner time.

  You received little red envelopes containing money on special occasions.

  You use the underside of a porcelain bowl to sharpen your knives.

  You cut your own hair… or had someone in your family do it.

  Your grandmother has a lot of gold teeth… especially in front.

  You keep fresh garlic and ginger in the kitchen at all times.

  You know what the term “lemon” or a “banana” means.

  You only have to shave every other day (maybe).

  You wash and reuse ziplock bags.

  You know at least three people named Alan Wong.

  You never drank milk after eating cherries.

  Your parents collect jade jewelry.

  You always drink tea after a meal.

  Your dad owns at least one bird.

  Your parents grow vegetables in a garden.

  You use doilies to decorate your furniture.

  Your grandmother rapped your knuckles with her chopsticks while reaching food with your fingers.

  Your remote controls are covered in saran rap.

  You wear/used to wear a pokemon shirt that was discoloured.
  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2220935914

• 2 Xiao Sun // Mar 11, 2008 at 8:03 am

  A lot of those are Cantonese, Taiwanese and/or Huaqiao, not necessarily universally Chinese, let alone “Chinese” (mainland) Chinese.

  Once again, the futility of generalization resurfaces!

  You know you’re Chinese if you like beer, hard liquor and ice cream…

• 3 Helen // Mar 11, 2008 at 5:51 pm

  You understand and are proud of your place in the Asian hierarchy.

• 4 mee // Mar 12, 2008 at 4:26 pm

  aluminum foil covered stove!

• 5 mee // Mar 12, 2008 at 4:34 pm

  majority of chinese in USA is cantonese…

• 6 cj // Mar 16, 2008 at 8:18 am

  My stepmother from Taiwan will ask after cooking a meal, ” this not good huh? or ” I did’nt make this right”, I did’nt know I was suppose to praise her cooking when she asked these things.
  I’m 3rd generation Chinese so I think I’ve offended her unintentionally. Someone help me.

• 7 Justin // Mar 16, 2008 at 12:29 pm

  Asians tend to be hard on themselves when it comes to cooking so I always try my best to compliment the cooking because I know it took them a lot of time and effort to make us happy with good food.

• 8 Jorge // Mar 17, 2008 at 5:38 am

  When is someone going to make a blog called “Stuff Ninjas Like”?

• 9 AC // Mar 26, 2008 at 12:58 pm

  Hey CJ,

  Your stepmother probably was seeking compliments or reassuring. A lot of Asians aren’t comfortable with offering themselves up for praise or reassurance (e.g. you will never ever hear a traditional Asian declaration “BOO YEAH! Who’s the king??” type behaviour), they often fish for it as a result of insecurity or the appearance of humility. It’s that classic line, “Do I look fat in this?” but with the Asian twist (in that it’s used for everything where they want reassurance or compliments).

  On the other hand, maybe your stepmother was trying to please you, but your lack of reaction may have given her the idea that you’re ungrateful for her efforts (I think a lot of Asian parents have guilt-tripped many a child with the, “You know how hard I work to keep you in school and piano, so don’t waste my money”).

  If you want to bolster her confidence or make up for not praising her the first time, the best chance is to praise her cooking in front of other people, telling them how you like the way your stepmother cooks this particular food or whatever. People (not just Asians) love being complimented about in front of other people (although sometimes the Chinese have a tendency to do this passive-aggressively with each other, similar to Rachel McAdams in “Mean Girls” with “I love your skirt/that is the ugliest skirt I’ve ever seen”, but that is a topic for another day).

  Hope that helps!

• 10 AC // Mar 26, 2008 at 7:25 pm

  I don’t know how prevalent it is in the U.S., but in Toronto, Canada, most of the fob Chinese I’ve seen seem crazy about cell phone accessories (kinda like the psycho Japanese killer school girl in “Kill Bill Vol. 1″ with the bunch of stuff on her knife). That might be a good topic for a new blog.

• 11 Anonymous // Mar 28, 2008 at 7:16 pm

  a lot of these are true for me some r dead on lol fuckin love being chinese!

• 12 Anonymous // Mar 30, 2008 at 2:26 pm

  Gambling and casinos

• 13 Anonymous // Mar 30, 2008 at 2:27 pm

  Inviting every living relative, and relatives’ relatives, to your wedding, even if you’ve never met them before

• 14 haolepake // Mar 31, 2008 at 4:41 pm

  -referring to everyone else as foreigners
  - spoiling baby boys
  -scolding non-living objects (e.g. “Bad table for hurting baby!”)
  -asking people how much money they make
  -jovial older men
  -taking pride in picking out the best fruit
  -circling for over an our around the block of the best dim sum restaurant looking for a parking space while the other members of the party wait for a table.

• 15 christine // Apr 3, 2008 at 9:26 pm

  Saving napkins and little packets of ketchup from fast food chains

  hocking loogies (spitting on the street)

  live fish

  whiney two-stringed instruments

• 16 christine // Apr 3, 2008 at 9:28 pm

  Oh, and BEING SARCASTIC in just about everything they say. It might be an “outgoing” way to deal with one’s fundamentally “private” personality. Younger Chinese Americans do this a lot. It seems they are using sarcasm to express something snidely while keeping their full meaning half-hidden, or softening it as a polite thing to do.

• 17 Justin // Apr 3, 2008 at 9:42 pm

  cool, thanks for the suggestions and list!

• 18 Ben // Apr 4, 2008 at 9:42 am

  Folding random oragami animals to represent every year/month/day/hour/second a relationship has lasted

• 19 Anonymous // Apr 10, 2008 at 2:56 am

  how about SRIRACHA? that sauce is heaven-sent… i put it on everything!

• 20 Anonymous // Apr 10, 2008 at 3:08 am

  at least with my family, when i was little, we used to raw tomatoes with a little bit of sugar on them as dessert or as a snack

• 21 Anonymous // Apr 10, 2008 at 6:06 am

  i think this is an overall asian thing: sleeping on bamboo mats! especially during the summer mmmmm it’s so cool

• 22 Jill Anderson // Apr 10, 2008 at 6:57 am

  Chinese love: using umbrellas in ANY KIND OF WEATHER, running across the street, anything Hello Kitty (or is that the Japanese?), picking through my recycle bins on trash day, and the young girls like to dress as prostitutes when they go grocery shopping.

• 23 YASPY Chick // Apr 10, 2008 at 11:44 am

  Hello Kitty is Japanese, but Chinese people love lots of things Japanese (including cars, rice cookers and cute stationery and toys)! Of course, if you’re older than 65, you’d be totally closeted about it.

• 24 Steve // Apr 10, 2008 at 12:08 pm

  you know you’re chinese when…
  -you go to a party and you immediately drink all the yogurt on the drinks table before eyeing the baijiu
  -you have a karyoke system set up in your basement
  -whenever you find yourself in a crowd of other asians you intuitively separate by gender
  -you get pissed when somebody heats unused rooms in the winter
  -you can’t get by without your dangling charm hanging from the rearview mirror and find yourself spotting friends on the road by identifying their rearview mirror decorations

• 25 haolepake // Apr 10, 2008 at 9:18 pm

  Jill Anderson beat me to it…scavenging!!!

• 26 brenda // Apr 13, 2008 at 1:31 pm

  Chinese, and maybe other Asians love the number 8. They love it so much that they get special license plates and cell phone numbers with that number. In fact, the Chinese Olympic games are scheduled to start on 8-8-08 at exactly 08:08 P.M.

• 27 ying cao // Apr 15, 2008 at 7:26 pm

  Chinese people like imitating.

• 28 eeeeeeeeeeee // Apr 17, 2008 at 3:03 pm

  Chinese FOB females like wearing full sunglass face shields and cover their arms during the day.

• 29 eeeeeeeeeeee // Apr 17, 2008 at 3:04 pm

  they sell their houses with “888″ in it, they only buy stuff with “888″ in it, their worship 888 … and hate it when I say “444″ ” se se se” LOL

• 30 Wu Girl // Jun 5, 2008 at 4:25 pm

  Even though you never drink, because it causes your face to flush after half a glass of wine, you have many dusty but expensive novelty bottles of liqueur on display, and you buy the same for relatives. Ah, status gifts. After all, I always judge the status of my relatives and friends by the number of bottles they have on display.

• 31 B.H. // Jun 19, 2008 at 12:34 am

  Hi,

  Ijust started a satirical list of stuff Malaysian people like

  I think you will find some content transferrable. If you could link me on this site, I would be much obliged. My thanks in advance.

• 32 mel // Jul 14, 2008 at 6:25 am

  im not chinese. i come from england but it weird cos i can relate to loads of these. espesh te saving sauce packets XDDD

• 33 sunshowers // Aug 11, 2008 at 8:10 pm

  When your parents are very suspicious of all other races, but are deeply offended that any other race would make negative assumptions about Chinese people.

• 34 steward // Aug 11, 2008 at 8:49 pm

  hahaha those are all true..except that you forgot chinese or (all asians) are bad drivers. Smell the neighborhood with your cooking…..they dont like alchohol or smoke cigars…cheap….there infact more racist then us white people…..they never walk alone, they’re intimidated by white people..they scared of places white people go to….dont open the door to anyone at night or during the day (they’ll look in the window first to identify who it is) afraid of alive dogs…..have only been living in north america maximum 25 years..

• 35 Alex // Aug 25, 2008 at 6:18 pm

  All Chinese people know everything there is to know about the NBA, and then it’s a hierarchy from there.

  1. NBA
  2. NFL
  3. MLB
  4. NHL
  5. WWF (classic, 90’s)

• 36 Stephen // Oct 4, 2008 at 11:19 am

  “Your folks never speak under 10 decibels at family gatherings.”

  This should be 100 decibels. 10 decibels is quiter than a whisper.

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